


Cohabitant

by ticktockclockwork



Series: Secondary Noise [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Domesticity, M/M, Normalcy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 04:57:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12125019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ticktockclockwork/pseuds/ticktockclockwork
Summary: Sometimes life is just life, and there's some kind of poetry in that.





	Cohabitant

**Author's Note:**

> So as much as I love idealistic fluff, sometimes it’s hard for me to swallow the unrealistic expectations fandom puts on love and relationships. This is my attempt at romanticizing normalcy.

Some mornings, when Jack wakes up to an empty bed, he doesn't smell anything coming from the kitchen. He doesn't hear music, or his husband singing. He doesn't feel the bed still warm, like a dream he's just woken from. Some mornings he wakes up to cold sheets, a messy room, mediocre weather, and Bitty neither seen nor heard.

He shuffles to the bathroom, his back slow to wake up from it's ache after years and years of athletic abuse. He brushes away his morning breath as best he can, gargles some old mouthwash they've had since they first moved here, and trips over the towel Bitty never manages to hang up after his evening showers.

He sprays on some deodorant and reluctantly tugs on some sweats and an old t-shirt, though he knows he's dragging his feet on his normal workout. He doesn't feel like it today, and part of his mind says to skip it, but the rest of his well trained body knows he won't. He'll begrudgingly go running, complaining the entire way.

Bitty's on the couch when he comes out of the bedroom, a blanket across his lap and Dottie laying across the back of the couch behind him. He's rumpled, his hair a mess, curling around his ears where it's getting long. He only looks half awake but Jack doubts that will last too long. There's a big bowl filled with grey milk, remnants of Bitty's fruit loops breakfast. 

“No pancakes?” Jack asks when Bitty looks up from his phone. 

“There's eggos in the freezer.” He says simply, drinking from a glass that looks suspiciously like it's filled with chocolate milk.

Jack goes to make a protein shake instead, kicking the door shut on the dishwasher where he can smell the sour aroma of chores not yet completed. In fact, their house is kind of a mess overall, the results of too many nights on the road and Bitty refusing to take that as an excuse for him to do all the cleaning. Jack is guilty of that, of skirting his fair share because of being away so much and knows he needs to do better.

They're working on it.

“I think I'm going to head into the city today. Wanna join?” He calls as he dumps the powder into his shaker.

Bitty glances back over the couch and shakes his head. “Nah. I just want to sit here today. I did a bunch of vlog stuff yesterday and I don't want to move today.” They have a freezer filled with ice box pies, born from Bitty's recording session yesterday. 

Jack knows Bitty wants time to himself. It's why he's out here this morning, why it looks like he's been here for a few hours instead of still curled up in bed with Jack. But Jack doesn't mind. He gets it. They're a unit, a couple, Jack & Bitty. But they're also Jack, and Bitty and sometimes they don't want to hang out with each other all day and sometimes they don't want to do what the other is doing. Someone's they aren't right where the other wants them. They're just human. 

“Okay.” Jack nods after downing the shake in one pull, wiping his hand across his mouth. Then he walks over to kiss the top of Bitty's head. “I love you.”

Bitty looks up to him then and smiles, reaching up to touch his stubbly cheek, the warm press of his ring causing a shiver to run through Jack's shoulders. “I love you too, sweetpea.”

Today they wouldn't spend the day wrapped around each other. They might not fall asleep together, might not be able to make their desired schedules work. But that was okay. They didn't need that, when they had each other. They didn't need a fairy tale, they just needed their normal, the story they made for themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on Tumblr @ [ticktockclockwork](http://www.ticktockclockwork.tumblr.com)


End file.
